Americans might have divided feelings about the company — pride as well as trepidation. But in Europe — where there is some experience with dystopian futures — feelings are much less mixed. “Stop Google” is a regulatory mantra for both left-wing and nationalistic bureaucrats.

To little avail — until last week.

In a nonappealable ruling, the European Court of Justice gave individuals the right to redact results on searches of their names — for wrong information, out-of-date information and, it seems too, just unflattering information.

invasive (adj) annoying because of being too close, too noisy, or too involved in people’s personal lives
dystopian (adj) an imaginary place or situation in which everything in society is extremely bad
mantra (n) something repeated again and again
bureaucrat (n) someone who is employed to help run an office or government department
unflattering (adj) making someone seem unpleasant or not attractive